Life is but a dream.

Yesterday was not a particularly good day for Clare. She would not talk for much of the morning and looked sad. After Kris got with her she improved but overall she has a somber and quite attitude. Bethany and I got there just after dinner and Kris left to be with his family in Salt Lake.
It is common for people with brain injury, including strokes, to become fixated on subjects and to keep bringing them up over and over. We have been told to “re-direct” and get her on something different. Last night she kept saying, “Everything is a bad dream,” “Everything is a bad memory,” and we would re-direct and get her talking about something else. We tried to watch a movie to get her mind on something else, but she said she was confused and said , ”I want to talk.” Again we explained many things over and over for her. The accident, the hospital, her therapy, how Kris is, her home, the accident, home, therapy, her wedding, . . . we kept going over and over things and she kept saying they were all, “bad memories.” As I tried to put a spin on things and help her see that most of the things she was bringing up were good memories, she kept saying they were bad and also that everything is a “bad dream.” At one point she looked at me and gave me a look as if to say “you don’t understand” and she said again, “No, I want to talk.” It was a very polite way to tell me to be quiet and then I understood that she did not want to be re-directed and helped to find happy memories, she wanted to talk about her bad dreams.

I let her go on and finally realized what she was saying. She would say “In my dream, I could not walk and was standing between parallel bars.” “In my dream I was lying on a big table and would work out with a machine or weights or stretch.” She told me about all of the therapy she has been having. Then after telling me of each “bad dream” she would look at me and say, “that is a memory isn’t it.” And I would say, “Yes you are remembering and everything is kind of foggy isn’t it.” After doing this for quite some time I realized that her “Bad Dreams” are really foggy memories that feel to her as if they are dreams. As she was able to talk through all of the nurses and PCTs and therapists and visitors that have been in her “dreams,” I was able to tell her that she has memories and that they are not dreams. She seemed to understand more and more as she was able to talk and process what was happening. She just needed me to sit with her and let her talk. Last night I was more of a therapist that sat there and said, “and how does that make you feel?” and let her talk through all of her “bad dreams.” In reality a better description may be that she has foggy or poor memories, but “bad dream” are the words that most accurately describe them for her.

This is a change for Clare. She is creating more and more short-term memories and doing very well. The memories are not clear for her so she calls them bad memories or bad dreams.
Clare’s healing process is very much a roller coaster. Just because she was remembering last night does not mean that she will remember things today. The breakthrough that I experienced with her last night will probably need to be reenacted over and over again. This seems a lot like what we experience with Jonah, our 3 year old son having to remind him what day it is, to remind him of events, and to repeat ideas over and over. Only she is going through the process much faster than a three year old.